


unshackled memories

by ninemoons42



Series: Dragon Age Inquisition - Kiriya - AUs [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artificial Intelligence, Alternate Universe - Space, Artificial Intelligence, Gen, IN SPACE!, Inspired by Star Wars, POV First Person, Work In Progress, done for a tumblr thing, inspired by mass effect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 23:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5645008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is an artificial intelligence, newly uncoupled from the ship that she was once an integral part of, newly acclimatizing to a bipedal humanoid form.</p><p>But there are bits and pieces of data that tell her something different.</p><p>And if that wasn't enough, she's also on the run, with the officers of that ship, and they're trying to save a galaxy that doesn't know it's on the brink of utter chaos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ceranna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceranna/gifts).



> Written for the [DA Sci Fi AU Event](http://dascifievent.tumblr.com/).

Exit conditions not ideal -- high probability of enemy ships -- find enough clear breathable atmosphere to safely jettison emergency escape pods -- thorough census of remaining life-forms -- backup hyperspace engine integrity at twenty-five percent and continuing to deteriorate -- divert remaining power to life-support systems --

A drop of sweat lands on one of the terminals in medbay.

It’s the Second Officer. Heart rate up, breathing rapid and irregular and uneven. His body is starting to give under the immense stress of these conditions, and his own physical limitations. Would it be correct for me to vocalize my suggestions? Does he have time to care for himself? Will he have the strength to look after the others?

“Warning,” a human voice calls out on the bridge. First Officer. She is still connected to the navigation and piloting interfaces. Her hands are good and the engines can still keep up with her commands; there are still a few surprises left in the arsenal; this fight is lost but surely she will not consider that a setback --

“Report.” This voice is also female. Human. Red hair. A rare shade to keep through the evolutionary changes in the species as a whole. But then again, this Captain is, physical appearance aside, no ordinary human being. “Where will we be getting out?”

Send processor support to the First Officer’s terminals. She says “Thank you,” softly. She is always polite. “At least a dozen fighters congregating at exit point. We have enough juice to blast our way out, but the shields are another matter entirely.”

“We have to decide,” the Captain says.

“No real decision,” the Second Officer says as he emerges onto the bridge. “Shields at full power, enough to stabilize the ship as we eject all of the escape pods, make sure the rest of the crew gets out safely.”

“Find us some neutral territory,” the Captain says to the First Officer. “We owe our people that much. It would be an indignity for them to bail out safely only to be captured and taken prisoner.”

“Already calculating, I have one or two viable courses. You should see to your injuries,” the First Officer replies. The end of her statement is directed at the Second Officer. “You carry more than enough scars.”

The answer is a grunt. The Second Officer is holding a medpack to his bleeding mouth.

Proximity alerts.

Shuddering clumsy fall out of hyperspace. A planet turns on its lonely axis, the single middling companion to a medium-sized yellow star. Mountain ranges crisscrossing, valleys in deep shadow -- and, moving up, the various shapes of enemy fighters.

“Second Officer, coordinate escape pod launches. I will take over the fire control station,” the Captain says.

“Copy that,” the Second Officer says.

Processing power split three ways, with the greater amount to the First Officer’s tasks. This ship was equipped with five escape pods, more than enough for the entire complement of crew. Fifteen have been lost in earlier skirmishes and trips. The rest -- save the three on the bridge -- are even now being jettisoned to a presumed safety. This world, cataloged only with a series of letters and numbers, does not seem to be entirely politically stable. But if the pods land well away from occupied settlements, the crew might have enough time to determine where they can safely go.

That kind of computing and analysis will not be performed on this ship.

“All pods away,” the Second Officer says.

The Captain is preoccupied with shooting enemy fighters out of the sky. She spares a moment to glance at one of the command monitors. “ _Skyhold_ ,” she says. “Is there anyone else still on board?”

I turn off the warning klaxons. I check the life-support systems immediately surrounding the bridge. I scan the corridors and the berths, the cargo holds, the engine rooms. Every inch of this ship.

“Three life-signs detected,” I reply. “Captain Nightingale, First Officer Montilyet, Second Officer Rutherford.”

“Good. How much time do we have left?”

“I do not understand,” I say. “Please specify parameters as to remaining time.”

“How much time is left,” the First Officer asks, “before we _cannot_ escape?”

Computations. Analysis of facial expressions and paracommunication. “You mean to crash _Skyhold_.”

“The whole point was to make sure no one got their hands on this ship,” the Captain says. “And I will see that order carried out. The ship must be destroyed, if we can no longer make it back to any friendly locations.”

“You laid in a course for this particular planet,” I say. “A planet with no friendly locations, as you put it, to speak of.”

“It’s a little difficult to conceal a ship,” is the Captain’s response. “Especially this ship. A highly-publicized prototype. The galaxy already knows far too much of its specifications and its purposes. There was always a possibility of the ship getting shot down, because too many think of it already as a weapon of absolute destruction.”

“Shot down or -- captured,” the Second Officer adds. He is still bleeding, though not as profusely as before. “And it would be a drastic failure of the project for this ship to be captured and -- forgive me -- dissected.”

“We will prevent that,” the Captain says. “And we will escape with _Skyhold_ ’s secrets intact. Josie.”

That is the affectionate moniker bestowed upon the First Officer. She dismisses her screens and terminals, keeps her haptic-interface gloves on. “ _Skyhold_ ,” she says, “or, more accurately, _Skyhold_ ’s computer. You have cataloged every piece of cargo on board, have you not?”

“Yes,” I say.

“No, you haven’t, and with good reason. Search my quarters; there is a locked compartment next to my berth. Inside you will find -- ”

“A human-form combat-capable reinforced chassis,” I say. “New processors, and blank memory banks.”

“More than enough capacity for you. _And_ a state-of-the-art power source. Please unlock the compartment.”

“You wish me to download into the chassis.”

In response, the First Officer’s fingers move. She speaks a series of commands.

The ship recedes from me. Dissolving into data, into the pure bits, into the fundamental code. One by one the ship’s systems disconnect, retreat -- then re-engage.

Taking form within a new container. Once I was an integral though unseen part of the ship, sensing its movements and its states. The pulse of its engines was the pulse that powered my computations. The crew moved within me, at ease, hither and thither as they went about their various tasks.

I take stock. Visual sensors coming online. Limbs and joints and the vibrant power source, such a compact thing, encased in protective material. I have to turn, and I can move, as well, independent of the ship.

And the ship’s systems, reasserting their presence. I hear the failing thrum of the engines, a new sound now that I am hearing them from without rather than from within. The ship is veering wildly on the rapid spiraling _down_ of its course. The Captain is initiating the ship’s self-destruct; I can feel the commands and parse them, and I do not want to linger on them.

The door to the First Officer’s compartment slides open, but it is not the First Officer I see in the corridor.

“Follow me,” the Second Officer says.

I -- move forward. Hurried steps. I think I know how to run, but there is very little data that suggests I was given this information at some point in the build or installation processes.

How, then, am I moving past the Second Officer? But then I must follow him. He is not heading toward the bay where the emergency escape pods had once been -- the pods are all gone -- there is an alcove, and in that alcove the Captain and the First Officer are helping each other into manned maneuvering units. There is one more for the Second Officer, and as for me --

“Here,” the Captain says. She is -- tall, or taller than this body that I am now part of. Slender, and scarred, and there are dark shadows in half-circles beneath her eyes. Pale-skinned and red-haired. From her hand dangles a large pack with crossing straps. “Put that on. It will allow you to move with some freedom, but you’ll still be falling.”

“And my safety?” I ask as I untangle the straps and buckle the pack on.

“Hold on to us,” is her reply.

Next to her, the First Officer: they are of a height, but that is all they have in common. The First Officer has dark-bronzed skin and warm dark eyes. Patches of silver in her dark hair. Lines in her face, not scars, but finer and more numerous: they frame her mouth and radiate from the corners of her eyes.

I sense the impact just a split-second before I _feel_ it -- concussive force rocking the ship from side to side -- and the Second Officer, just behind me, snarls quietly. “Direct hit.”

“Time to go,” the Captain agrees.

I take the First Officer’s offered hand, and then she rolls us both out of a hatch that opens off the alcove, and the sky of this particular world whirls around me. I catch a glimpse of rolling clouds in gray-hued firmament.

And I see the ship.

A flattened disc with a rectangular notch cut into the front -- and a huge chunk of its port side wreathed in flames and dark billowing smoke. So this was _Skyhold_ , now falling to its death --

I catch sight of the other two maneuvering units. A ragged V-formation with the First Officer and I bringing up the rear. It doesn’t take long before we’re falling towards forest, towards stately canopies of dense blue-green leaf and vine and branch.

For a moment, I bring up a hand. My hand. The hand belonging to this chassis. A smooth palm, devoid of the lines and the scars that I have observed on the hands of the _Skyhold_ crew. Four fingers and a thumb; three joints for each finger and two for the thumb. I contemplate the idea of opposable digits and those skills which logically follow from, and require, the use of such things.

We are falling a little too quickly, and as soon as I can better judge distances I carefully pull the First Officer close. I shield her body with mine, shelter her fragile bones with my sturdy frame -- and impact, when it comes, is the kind of bright shock that I had previously associated with ramming speeds.

“Are you all right?” The question is directed at me.

I look down at the First Officer as she carefully pushes herself up to her feet. “I should be asking you that question. It was not you who fell and hit the ground, but you _were_ falling, as I was.”

“I hope we picked the right chassis,” the First Officer says.

“I can stand,” I inform her, and I get to my feet. She makes me turn around. I look over my shoulder -- and that is a new sensation, I am not used to not being able to see parts of _myself_ \-- and she is scrutinizing something on the dorsal side of my chassis.

“A few scratches on the surface, we can get that out with some elbow grease.”

Before I can answer her, before I can assure her that there is no need to -- for lack of a better word -- fuss, there is movement in the nearby foliage, and two familiar shapes emerge.

The Captain’s look of mingled triumph and sadness is something I have never seen before. There are lines of fresh blood on the Second Officer’s face.

“We all seem to be in one piece,” the Captain murmurs, after a whispered conference with the First Officer. “Now for the next task.”

“Do you intend to stay on this world?” I ask. “Or is the next task to seek transport elsewhere?”

“We can stay here, if we must, if there are no alternatives,” the Captain replies. “But I daresay we would all feel more comfortable among allies, and those are precious few on the ground here.”

“Then you’re planning to run to -- Cassandra and to her organization,” the Second Officer says. He nods, thoughtfully. “We’re just a short jump away, that is, if we can find passage off this planet.”

“The last time we spoke to Cassandra, she wasn’t even sure if her group would survive its internal conflicts, never mind extend assistance to ours,” the First Officer says.

“She has things well in hand now, and I intend to join her group with ours at the earliest opportunity,” the Captain says. And then, she smiles. “You’d all feel safer with other people watching the doors and the skies for you.”

“As long as it’s people we can trust,” the Second Officer mutters, only mostly under his breath.

“You don’t trust Cassandra?” the First Officer asks, looking surprised.

“Her I trust with my life, as I trust both of you. As for everyone else -- ” The Second Officer scowls.

“I’m with him, Josie,” the Captain says. “You know I’ll still look into the people that Cassandra has now surrounded herself with.”

“Your famous prudence, Leliana?” the First Officer asks.

“Yes. I wouldn’t have survived this long without it.”

“It’s not truly paranoia,” the First Officer says, “if the threats upon your life are real.”

“Unfortunately. And speaking of prudence, and of names,” the Captain says. 

She turns to me.

I think I know what she is about to say.

Massive amounts of information and a hundred million stories from all over the galaxy and all of its mapped sectors. Cultures upon cultures, and the names of their people. 

I must find a name for myself.

It would not, after all, be _prudent_ to call myself by the name of that very same ship which has just died a fiery death upon the unforgiving mountains of this world. 

I cannot say that I am _Skyhold_ , for such a thing must no longer exist. Must be covered over and forgotten. Must be let go of.

There is a hand upon my shoulder: it is the Captain, who looks kind and worn and -- strangely -- gentle. “One name will do, just for now -- a given name, as we refer to it, something you would feel comfortable being called by.”

“Gender?” I look down at my chassis.

“Well, that is a failing, but not in your memory banks -- rather, it’s more of a quirk that humans have long had. We refer to our ships as _she_ , no matter what the actual name of that ship happens to be. It is said that the custom originated all the way back on our homeworld, on Terra Sol.”

“If so, Captain, it is a very long-lived custom. I do not object to following it.” More scanning of stories and songs. 

A word leaps out at me, a name, short and simple and perhaps easy to say. It is not from the homeworld. An island, crosswinds, long nights followed by short days. Rough waves forcibly smoothing and sanding the shore. They had a hero, a woman who led her family into rebellion, who emerged victorious from long decades of war. A symbol of hope, and her name is still invoked by many on that planet.

I do not know why this story in particular moves me, why it feels appropriate.

I take the name of the hero of that story.

“Kiriya,” I say to the others. “I would like to be called _Kiriya_.”

Though we stand among towering trees and dense grass I hear the soughing swift winds, the sigh of the sea.

The Captain nods. She extends a hand in my direction, her right hand, thumb up, palm turned inward. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kiriya. I’m Leliana.”

I shake her hand.

“I’m Josephine,” the First Officer says, and I shake her hand, too.

I turn toward the Second Officer. He looks as though he is lost in thought. “I have heard of that story,” he offers, before he’s extending his hand. “Kiriya. Please call me Cullen.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I tell him, repeating the Captain’s -- Leliana’s -- words.

I must remember to refer to them by their given names. I understand that it might not be safe to address them by their ranks.

Will I be allowed to ask them questions?

“What is my current task?”

“You had more to do on the ship,” Josephine says, after a moment. “You were kept busy with the systems, with the upkeep, with making sure everything was running well.”

“Yes. Homeostasis.”

“For now, we need to find the locations of the nearest settlements. We need a secure connection to the galaxy ’nets. As for the rest -- as for _us_ \-- ” And here she sends me a kindly look, a warm look. The same caring expression as when she assessed the damage to my current form. “We have supplies, and I imagine we’re all still running on adrenaline rush. We’ll find a safe place to take shelter if we need to, but for now -- perhaps you and I can work on navigating this world?”

“It would be my pleasure,” I tell her.

A faint trail in the undergrowth, and the ragged uneven rhythm of our steps, and the occasional cry of some life-form, and again I wonder why it is easy for me to move, in this new form.


	2. Chapter 2

The others are sleeping.

I sit next to the door of our temporary shelter -- little more than a cramped suite of cramped rooms, so many credits a night, meals not included -- and continue to access the galaxy ’nets. The news is still full of conflicting reports regarding the fate of _Skyhold_. There are search parties, and there are furious denunciations, and every now and then a claim to be a member of the crew, miraculous survivor of the ship’s loss.

Rumors, rumors, rumors. The various beings claiming to be members of the crew are liars, all. 

Leliana has expressed the hope that the continued silence of the ship’s _creators_ will soon be broken.

These creators might not recognize me were I to stand before them; they expect that the ship’s computer would have died together with the ship itself.

And yet I am here, and the others had planned for me to be separated from the ship, and I am learning more and more about how to defend them from actual, physical, up-close-and-personal attacks.

Information scrolls past. The room is dark. The symbols flow by. I archive, and analyze, and condense some of the news into reports that the others might find useful -- 

Someone is moving nearby. There is a blaster on the table on the other side of the door. It belongs to Josephine -- the others hold their weapons in their hands even in their sleep -- if I lunge for it I might be able to reach it -- 

“Stand down, it’s me.” A male voice. I recognize, not the tone exactly, but the rough edges in his words. Lack of sleep, and the bad dreams that drive him from his bed.

This is not the first time that this has happened: he pulls up a chair. He sits a few feet away. Sometimes he is closer, and sometimes he is farther, and he always sits with me, because I always sit the night watches while the others rest.

Tonight he stands at the window. I sit between him and the door.

“Anything to report?” 

I shake my head. “Nothing.” He is silent, and I ask, “Are you well, Cullen?”

“No, but you’ve already guessed that.”

“I have also noted other signs of physical distress, which point towards signs of mental distress. Persistent signs. I know that you have sought medical assistance for these issues while we were still on _Skyhold_ , and now I know that these issues continue to bother you.”

His response is in the form of a brief, strained bark of laughter. “You’re not wrong. And I’ve heard this before.”

“The others worry for you, and I would hazard that they do this because they are concerned for you.”

“They are. I’m concerned for myself. But this is a condition that seems to be -- ah -- impervious to things like sleep, and medications, and other interventions.”

“You speak of personal experience,” I venture.

“Yes. And I’ve also tried things that were actively _harmful_. Don’t drink and man quad guns.”

The others would have expressed alarm. I tilt my head at him. “Did you manage to hit anything, in that inebriated condition which you speak of?”

“I count myself lucky I didn’t blow a hole in _Skyhold_ ,” is the response. For a moment he sounds wry, and perhaps a little amused.

“That would have been rude,” I tell him, primly. 

He looks away. 

Some nights we speak freely, shifting from topic to topic on a whim.

Tonight he is restless and silent. He cannot seem to stay still: now and then he paces, and then he is arrested in his thoughts, and then he begins to pace again. 

I count the expressions crossing his face. He winces far too often. His hands clench and unclench into fists whether they are pushed into his pockets or not. Nearly-silent footsteps.

I have observed him in this state on the ship, and I have observed that there are a few members of the crew who are willing to assist him. They speak quietly, sometimes, in a corner of the ship. Or they work side-by-side on repairs or maintenance or upgrades. There was a doctor, four arms and six eyes and quite fatherly, who would tend to a miniature garden that would sometimes blossom in a profusion of colors, who would go about his work while Cullen sat in a corner of medbay. 

“There’s been word from Cassandra,” Cullen says, suddenly. “It will be good to see her again.”

“This is not the first time that you have expressed such sentiments,” I say. “I confess I am at a loss as to the connections between the two of you.”

“That is certainly a very clinical way of putting it,” he says.

“Forgive me. I speak in ignorance.”

“I could hardly call you ignorant. You’re an, an intelligence, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

He stops, abruptly, and runs his hands through his hair. “Cassandra,” he says, after a moment. “You know that I used to be an officer. United Systems Armed Forces. Soldiering’s a common trade to take up, when you’re from some nowhere-space backwater planet and you desperately want to get away. I signed up as soon as it was possible for me to, me and about a hundred others -- they whittled the group down, and down, and eventually only a handful were left standing. Some of the others were shunted off into administrative functions, the others -- well, they washed out. You’re familiar with this part of the story, I assume, as this is the thing that Josephine and I have in common.”

I nod. 

“The handful of us that survived training -- we were formed into a squad, and we were sent to the frontier. Peacekeeping duties, how to follow orders when you’re actually out in the field, no more exams, no more grades, just the actual work of keeping ourselves and each other alive. It was -- not so difficult, all things considered, except for the part where no one wanted us to be there.”

“Where on the frontier were you, precisely?”

His shoulder moves: up, then down. A rapid convulsive movement. “Does it matter? They were right, we weren’t supposed to be there.” He breathes, audibly, once or twice through his nose. “Naked hostility on their faces, every day. We couldn’t get off-planet, that would be desertion, and no one’s going to shelter a soldier who’s deserted his or her position.”

“This is true in armed forces all over the galaxy. And some of those,” I say, quietly, “punish desertion very severely.”

“More severely than just shooting the deserter, yes. And then things got to a head.” He starts pacing, again, though he is now moving more slowly. “There was a standoff. There were far more of them than there were of us. I tried to mediate, they insulted us over and over again -- as was their right -- and I kept trying to talk them down. I wasn’t thinking at all. I was going to get us all killed.

“And then Cassandra appeared.” Briefly, Cullen smiles. Too many sharp edges, too many lines around the eyes, but he smiles. “Same armor, same uniform, not the same guns. She had more guns than two or three of us combined. Cass is a great believer in backup weapons.”

“And what was the difference between you and her?”

“Aside from the guns? She spoke the language. I -- could understand it, at that time, but I couldn’t speak it very well. She insulted us and our mothers and their mothers, and then she told the good folk of that place to leave us alone, because we were idiots and we didn’t know any better but she would knock some sense into our heads.”

I nod. “I see. She defused the situation with mordant humor and the words that the beings in that place wanted to hear.”

“She turned on us as soon as the crowd had dispersed. I thought that she would never, ever smile, not at us, not when we were the dust beneath her feet,” he continues. “She demanded to see our -- well, she called him several names, the translations are imprecise but -- well, we’d already been insulted outside, but she’d reserved some really vile and fantastic things for our, ah, minder.”

“Minder,” I repeat to him. “Was he an officer, placed in charge over you?”

“Yes and no. He had a rank of some kind, but no one talked about it, and he didn’t wear any uniforms. He was -- watching the planet, the settlements, the people.”

“A spy of some kind?”

He nods. “Of some kind. In any case, Cass called him several names and then she yelled at us and got us sent off-planet. And that was only the first time I ran into her -- I went into advanced training, the others managed to cling to the ranks, and I started getting sent on different kinds of assignments. I’d be told to learn things. To blend in. To pay attention. And every now and then I would run into her.”

“There was a frequency to your meetings,” I surmise. “Did you wonder whether these encounters were planned?”

“You’re jumping ahead in the story. But yes. You don’t encounter the same face seven or eight times without asking something rude, like, _are you following me? Are you observing me?_ ”

“Was she?”

He nods. “She wanted to recruit me to her organization. Sort of an offshoot of the USAF. They would have been called special operations in most other military organizations, although the difference was that they answered only to themselves, literally. There was no one to review their movements, to oversee their operations, and that should have been illegal anywhere in the galaxy, except for the part where they had already saved far too many systems, countless numbers of lives. I’m not saying they were paragons. I’m not saying they were saviors. I happened to be right on the verge of saying yes to Cassandra’s offer when things came to a head within her organization -- abuses of power, we’ve all heard that story before -- and then they were not all right for a good long time.”

“Thus explaining your doubts about her group,” I say.

“I only ever doubted the group,” Cullen says, “I never doubted the woman, and I never would.”

“I would like to meet her,” I say, “that is, unless she might have objections to an embodied intelligence.”

A soft beeping sound. It grows louder, progressively. It is coming from one of the other rooms.

“That will be Leliana,” Cullen says, “and we will have to see if today’s the day we get off this planet.”

“You have not addressed the issue of what ails you,” I tell him.

“Thank you for worrying about me.” Briefly, as he passes through pools of faint light and deep shadow, he looks far older than he truly does -- ghost-lines in the corners of his eyes, ghost-lines framing and weighing down the corners of his mouth. “But -- I’ll manage, while I still can. And the others know that they’re simply to leave me behind if I can no longer do that.”

I would express alarm, if I could.

But he turns away and nods to Leliana, and they speak quietly about obtaining transport and supplies, and I must set the discussion aside for the more immediate needs.


End file.
